Sixpence
by EYES to LIE
Summary: Take them by their hands and show them how to build their home, brick by brick. Five drabbles about four Milletians and two Incubi.


**Disclaimer: Merokin and Echo belong to me. Shouza, Killian, Edolas, and Tagarta belong to Scarlet Ookami. Mabinogi and all its landmarks belong to Nexon? Heck if I know.**

**NOTICE: For any who read White Wings or The Lunae, those oneshots have been removed as Merokin's backstory has changed. The end.**

* * *

**I.**

He isn't normal, of course. Never has been, never will be.

She isn't normal, of course. Once upon a time, maybe, but that fairy tale ended years ago. When she died, that is.

They don't pace each other like furious animals—starved, territorial beasts. Time has whittled away the need to cut away their own pain with that of others.

Echo doesn't love her, of course. He simply doesn't know how to.

Shouza doesn't love him, of course. He's far too strange. Too happy. Too dark.

He is a battle marred cat. She is a wounded mother bear. The only things they bear in common are the scars they carry; there's no love in their hearts.

In the end, they only things they can do are clean the blood from their cuts and hope that one of them can show the other how to heal.

**II.**

He doesn't want her to bandage his arms for he fears her touch will be like the rest of her; harsh, cold, unfeeling, immovable.

A rock in the river of life, refusing to be swayed by the icy cold waters.

It surprises him greatly to find her hands to be warm and soft; rinsing away the guilt he had affixed to his soul like a tattoo—if only temporarily.

It pains him when they leave.

It shames Tagarta to long for their kind reprieve once more.

**III.**

Edolas is an Incubus—_was _an Incubus, he reminds himself painfully.

With that position in life, he became very aware of the "Seven Sins".

Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Envy, Lust, and Greed.

Lust was encouraged. Sloth could be appealing. Envy and Greed came hand in hand as motivators—tag-teaming with Gluttony.

If Pride had truly been a sin, Tagarta had saved him from one level of hell with his betrayal.

If Wrath was truly a sin, then he was damned once more.

**IV.**

Perfection.

Perfecting.

Perfected.

The dictionary lies at her bedside, mostly unused. She knows most of the words, the spellings, the conjugations, the definitions. She was, after all, raised to be the best.

Invincible: unyielding. Impregnable, indomitable, suggests that which cannot be overcome or mastered.

She can read novels in a day, calculate advanced equations in a minute. She knows political lingo from its glorious shell to its rotten core.

And yet she dogears the only page she can't seem to understand. The paper is worn on page three-hundred and seventy-five, where it starts at PERDITION and ends at PERIOD.

She knows the terms by memory.

PerfectionPerfectingPerfected.

And yet she still cannot find the meaning.

**V.**

She no longer cares for society.

Or socialization.

Her only comforts now lie in a bottle and a worn smooth mandolin. She is content.

And yet, he questions, why?

There is no obvious outlying cause. No sick mutation on her face or body—of which she's made sure he's seen both. She has quirks, he's noticed. She eats alone, doesn't talk much and doesn't care to. She likes sex and doesn't care who it's with, so long as she's attracted to that person. She doesn't drink during the day. At night, she's attempting to drown in that sharp, liquid fire. Perhaps she's socially inept, but that could be fixed.

Then again, he could never quite manage to think of her as 'broken'.

She never offers to tell him her story and he never tries to pull it out of her unless they are both borderline smashed.

Tonight is an exception.

He lies in bed and watches her as she sits and smokes, filling her lungs with poison that will not could not cannot kill her—thank Morrighan for Milletians. In an odd moment of conservativeness, she has she sheet wrapped around her frame; a cover from prying eyes, a shield against the world. "Why don't I know anything about you?" The words fall, raindrops as a prelude to the storm.

"Because I came from a house." She smiles at him, the grin wry and crooked upon her face.

"Everyone comes from a house." He argues.

"What is a house?" She asks and he doesn't answer, now sensing the double meaning in the question. She loves to trick him. "A home can be a house, but a house isn't a home. Have you ever been to Iria?"

"Of course not, you know that." His wings are a testament to his imprisonment. An Incubus, bound to the realm of the Fomors.

"They have the most wonderful beaches in Iria. Golden sand stretching for miles." She takes a drag. "Some Milletians like to build castles out of the sand—childish little things, but beautiful in their construction. Some are magnificent—to the point where you can fool yourself into thinking that they're real. Then the tide comes in and washes it all away, making you feel like an idiot. That, love, is a house." She leans away from him, tossing the cigarette onto the stone floor. "A home without a heart may still be a castle, Tagarta, but it's a castle made of sand."

He takes her hand and pulls her against him—her back to his chest; his wings, wrapping them both in a leathery embrace.

"Home is where the heart is." He agrees. Merokin twists her neck and presses her lips to his.

"I'm home."


End file.
